1. Field of Invention
This invention is related to an editing device of patch work pieces. More particularly, it is related to the editing device which edits the form (or the shape) and the pattern of each patch work piece composing patch work piece products, and which prints out each edited patch work piece with patterns on a cloth or a fabric directly.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, an editing device of a patch work piece is well known. In this editing device, the operator can edit the form (or the shape) and the pattern of patch work pieces which compose a patch work piece product on a display device, and then the operator makes the editing device print out the edited patch work piece as a paper pattern to the printing device, such as a plotter and a printer.
More particularly, in this editing device, the operator first compiles the form of the each patch work piece on the display device. The operator initially chooses a pattern of the cloth or fabric, such as stripe, check, solid, and floral, from a pattern library stored, in advance, in a memory unit. This allows the operator to edit the form and dimension with respect to the fabric pattern of each patch work piece on the display device. Finally, the operator instructs the printing device to output the edited patch work pieces as a dress pattern paper (hereafter, referred to as a paper pattern).
However, the conventional editing device could only output a plain paper pattern, without the fabric pattern, of each patch work piece. Therefore, when the operator uses the paper pattern, the operator must place the paper pattern directly on a cloth or a fabric and achieve a proper orientation. This is difficult as the fabric pattern is not on the paper pattern which only has form (or shape) and size (or dimension). Then, the operator transcribes the form of patch work piece with a marker, such as marking pen or marking chalk, by marking the circumference of the paper pattern on the cloth or the fabric. The operator produces the pieces for actually creating the patch work piece product by cutting the cloth or the fabric along the marks. Thus, it takes a long time for the operator to create the patch work piece.
Because the pattern printed as the paper pattern was created using a cloth pattern library stored in the memory unit provided at the conventional editing device, there are two ways for the operator to actually get all the patch work pieces from the cloth or the fabric.
One way is for the operator to look for a cloth or a fabric having a similar pattern design as the pattern from the memory being used to create the paper pattern. When the operator finds the cloth or the fabric having the similar pattern, the operator places the paper pattern on the similar pattern portion of such a cloth or fabric. The operator then produces all the patch work piece patterns, and then the patch workpieces, in the same way as previously discussed.
A second way is for the operator to add the actual cloth pattern or the actual fabric pattern to the pattern library in the memory unit provided at the conventional editing device by, for example, capturing the cloth pattern or the fabric pattern using a scanner. Then, the operator edits the patch work pieces, using the captured pattern and obtains a paper pattern with the captured pattern. Finally, the operator produces all patch work pieces as discussed.
In the case where the operator gets the patch work piece from no-pattern cloth (no-pattern fabric) or detailed (minute) pattern cloth (detailed pattern fabric) using a paper pattern, the operator need not care where the paper pattern is placed on the cloth or the fabric because there will be no effect to final design of the patch work piece products even if the operator cuts the patch work pieces from any part of the cloth or the fabric. However, in case that the operator cuts the patch work piece from the cloth or the fabric having a large pattern using the plain paper pattern, the operator must position the paper pattern on the cloth or the fabric having a large pattern very accurately. If the paper pattern is not positioned accurately, the final patch work design will be quite different from the operator's desired pattern as the cut piece will not match properly with an associated piece. Accurately positioning the paper pattern on the cloth or the fabric having a large pattern is very difficult and takes much time because the paper pattern itself is plain and there is nothing to help orient the paper pattern to the fabric pattern. Further, in the case of using cloth or fabric having a large pattern, the patch work pieces are cut from only the desired portion of the cloth or the fabric. Thus, efficiency of use is very poor with considerable waste of the cloth or fabric.